Garbage Pail Kids

The fact that the mythical "Garbage Pail Kids" Saturday morning cartoon never actually aired (in the United States) was a landmark error by CBS executives, who were pressured by letters and complaints from several anguished suburban soccer moms (and other assorted fruit cakes) whose only other primary concerns were piano recitals and choir practice.

Fortunately, a few episodes aired overseas and were taped, and can now be purchased via the internet. The cartoon featured several GPK characters including Liberty Libby, Clogged Duane, Elliot Mess, Michelle Muck and Trashed Tracy. The only thing that aired in the United States was a Saturday morning "teaser ad" that ran a few weeks before the original scheduled debut.

UPDATE! The mythical Garbage Pail Kids cartoon is now available on DVD! All 13 episodes will be available in April 2006—Reserve your copy today!

I have been a huge Garbage Pail Kids fan and a loyal one since they came out in 1985. I recently purchased a 2-disk DVD of "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie" and the Saturday morning cartoon. There are 6 episodes and only one is in English and the rest are in Icelandic. It is actually a nice quality & unique DVD. It was great to finally see the long lost cartoon!!! Not as cool as I thought it would be, but it was still cool. I love it!!! Garbage Pail Kids are awesome!!!! I wish some company would publish a mega GPK DVD with the cartoon, movie, and tons of extras like card profiles and newspaper/magazine articles. Anyway, they seem to be popular again so maybe a DVD will be released. Maybe even a new cartoon!!!!!!!!

For years, this has been the holy grail for Saturday Morning cartoon addicts like myself. After finally seeing an episode on Youtube, all I can say is, WHAT THE HELL WAS THE BIG DEAL! If these parent groups actually watched the damned show, they'd see that it was about as offensive as "The Get Along Gang". And it's no where near as awful as the movie!!!!!

The show is pretty damned light weight. The thing that made the trading cards so much fun was that they were taboo. They were the kind of gross out humor that adults hate, and therefore, kids love. Not since Jay North played "Dennis The Menace" did network executives so miss the point.

Weirdly the previous commenter remembers seeing the show -- except it never actually aired on network TV. He actually has the names of a couple of the movie parody titles correct. I'd be interested to find out how he knew them.

The show was comprised of 6 elements. Four were one minute "gags." One was a short adventure story with a regular cast of GP Kids and one element was the aforementioned movie parody. The point was to use as many of the cards as possible throughout the series.

The trivia from IMDb is correct. Action For Children's TV refused to even run the episodes before threatening to wage an attack of some sort on CBS. Intestingly enough another show aired about a year later (never good with time and dates) that depending on how you want to look at it was far more "outrageous" -- this was Beetlejuice the cartoon.

I suppose if there's any buildup of interest at all in this series it's to see how offensive it really was. I'm most curious to find out what the verdict will be.

I remember watching this cartoon as a child and it's not nearly as bad as some people made it out to be. Yes, it is a real cartoon and it did air in various countries around the world, although apparently not in America. After looking at quite a few of the actual Garbage Pail Kids cards, I would parents had good reason to be concerned about a cartoon based on the cards. I don't care much myself for the cards, because I think they were gross and disgusting in the 1980s and they're gross and disgusting now. I will admit that some of them are kind of funny.

The cartoon itself was actually my first introduction to the Garbage Pail Kids. I didn't find out about the trading cards and the infamous 1987 live action movie (MacKenzie Astin's greatest role, next to that bit on The Facts of Life! :-) until much later. I actually viewed the Kids more as superheroes than anything. Well, you had Clogged Duane, who could turn his body into goo and slide through things, much like Nickelodeon's Alex Mack. And there was Patty, who could stretch her body and contort her face into silly shapes, much like Plastic Man or Mr. Fantastic, or even Elongated Man. There was Elliot Mess, who could take apart his body and hold his head in his hands. (I'm not sure how this power benefited him, other than he could use his head as a bowling ball. Well, anyway, that is using his head! Ha! I kill me! Okay, but seriously...) Split Kit was kind of the James Dean type dude, who could split himself into half nice kid and half bad dude. Then there was Janet, who could wipe her face clean and move it to her left hand and would talk with her hand. Literally, people would have to talk to the hand! And her face would be blank. (Again, I'm not sure of the point of this "power".)

Anyway, the Kids actually went around and helped people (sort of) and it was quite funny. It really wasn't as bad as the cards. That portion would usually be half of the show and the other half would have movie parodies. There were parodies of famous movies like the Indiana Jones trilogy, The Fly, and the Superman movies. I still remember "The Fry" parody and the "Supernerd" parody. Both were very funny. I was even able to acquire two episodes of this rare series and it was just as I remembered from a few scant years ago. Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Whoa, Whoa, Oh, Oh,.... (Yeah, I remember the theme song too) Garbage Pail Kids - the cartoon was pretty cool. I don't think I would get into collecting the cards and I haven't made myself watch the movie yet, but if you can find the cartoon you might want to check it out.